LX (Swiss) Phantom Award Space
 

Just used united.com to book an award with one sector in LX (Swiss) Business.

Swiss showed award space on united.com, selected the flights I wanted, and told the computer to confirm it.

When I did not get the e-ticket receipt after a few hours I logged in and noticed the following at the top of my reservation:I noted several other threads here about Swiss / LX having issues when booking paid tickets (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ng-issues.html and http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...nited-com.html) but nothing specifically related to UA issued awards.

UA.com does not show the sector, but does make mention of the waitlist. The UA app shows the waitlisted sector. Logging into swiss.com directly shows all the flights (even the non-swiss ones) but and reports the only LX sector as "Your flight booking is currently on the waiting list."

Award was booked earlier today (Saturday, mid afternoon CST) and I do not know if I should give it 24 hours and call back or find another routing?

Anyone else been in a similar situation here?

Sounds like it could be phantom availability on LX. Have you checked through Aeroplan or ANA's award booking engines to see if the space shows up there?

If you have sufficient status with UA that you can redeposit reward miles gratis and enough miles in the bank to do so you might consider booking a backup itin until the LX leg clears.


SL

Did not see any when I just checked. Also EF pinged back a NO as well.

The message specifically stated miles would not be pulled until ticketing, so no harm there.

That said, I do not want the rest of the award to fall apart so I called into UA to follow up.

Agent saw the LX I sector as well on her system but when she tried to sell (or resell, I guess?) it kicked it back as "waitlisted". Luckily the agent knew her stuff and was able to squeeze me onto comparable UA flights (thanks UA!).

My conclusion is LX revenue inventory integration with UA is not seamless (think people already knew this) but AWARDS which ARE suppose to be seamless can fail - or said another way - phantom LX award on united.com is an issue. Caveat emptor.

Going forward I think the best practice (?) is to verify LX I via another channel besides united.com prior to booking via the website and same-day follow up with UA if the e-ticket does not cut within an hour or so.

You might also check tomorrow. It's not uncommon for the phantom LH inventory to be an indicator of award space that is about to open (but is not yet bookable).

Swiss ticket "pending/wait list"
 

I was able to find a SFO-Zrh flight in biz class for the fall the other day. I got the confirmation page with a PNR when I booked it 2 days ago but still not ticketed and says wait listed on reservation page . Does this mean Swiss won't give the seats or something? I have seen the phantom availability issue but with that won't let you get as far as I did so I assumed all was ok and have already planned and purchased a ticket home to Lax based on this outbound I supposedly booked
The was a 70k award ticket

LX and UA reservation sytems don't play well together. There are often glitches that hamper ticketing on UA code shares.

After 48 hours, it's time to call in for manual intervention.

award ticket?

Yes

Multiple reported issues in getting LX award tickets confirmed and also paid tickets - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ng-issues.html

Who ever said partner awards are supposed to be seamless? AFAIK they're subject to the same confirmation process as revenue tickets, and they've had a number of problems for 4+ years now.

After an hour of back and forth on the phone I was told sorry it was a glitch ....only offer was to open up a coach seat lax-Ewr-Zrh on the Ua flight , that is not a viable option for me. Now I have a trip planned and paid ticket home on AA with no way over.....wonderful UA😡

Did they ever deduct the miles from your account? If so, you have grounds for a DOT complaint, it's a forbidden post-purchase price increase. 14 C.F.R. 399.88.

AFAIK, a PNR is not a confirmed ticket. You need a confirmation with an actual ticket number.

Very sorry to read about the phantom availability of award space SFO-ZRH on LX. I can't say that it surprises me, but what does surprise me is the unwillingness to open up a seat in I (J cabin) on some UA TATL flight - SFO-FRA or SFO-LHR would be my first ask. Then a nice shower in the lounge and a short Y (X) flight to ZRH on LX or LH. Alternatively, something out of ORD, with a UA connection at one end and an LX or LH connection at the other would still work.

Perhaps a request through 1K Voice could help?